Explore-Em-Ups, with Danger

[zonetrope]

I just started playing Outer Wilds and took to it almost immediately, and realized it's for a similar reason I loved SOMA: it's fundamentally exploration-based, with no combat or enemy swarms, but you can still die, so it's a step up in tension over something like Gone Home (which is great, but more like reading a very immersive short story).

What are other games that do this specific combination? Subnautica seems like a good game to try next, based on what I've read on TT.

 

[Dr. Nerd]

Subnautica was one of my favorite games of 2018, I definitely recommend it so long as you aren't allergic to the base-building aspect.

Most of the games that I know of that are in this style, but have a failure/death state, tend to skew towards horror. Alien: Isolation (has a bit of combat, but is mostly an explore-em-up in a way that reminds me of Soma), Observer, Layers of Fear, etc. Of these, I've only played Alien: Isolation, but I've been meaning to get to Observer forever.

EDIT: Also, I just remembered Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which also absolutely qualifies.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Oh yeah, Subnautica for sure. Good lord, that game can get scary at times. One of my favorite games of the decade, no fooling. And the amount of base building that is required is actually quite small (I just did way more because I thought it was super cool).

 

[Falselogic]

Subnautica is one of my all time fave games. Other good ones are Tacoma and Observation.

 

[jovewolf]

The Magic Circle has "death", though for the most part it's pretty toothless (and necessary to progress in some points) but is still primarily exploration based and has a somewhat unique story.

Murdered: Soul Suspect has you start dead, since you play a ghost, but you still have to work to avoid becoming double dead.

Event[0] has a very small handful of places where death can occur, but it's pretty good spaceship explore-em-up